The mine was built in 1937 to access silver and lead during Park City’s silver boom.
It will be open for visitors as an interactive piece of town history Oct. 15, Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History marketing director Colleen Logan said.
“Our mining history is so accessible,” Logan said. “We’re on a ski mountain, so you can hike, you can bike, ride the chairlift, and we want to make it safe so that people can get up close and check it out.”
Project manager Brian Buck said hikers and skiers will be able to enter the mine, look at an elevator shaft and peer through the windows into the hoist room. Tours will also be available for select groups.
Buck said the structure was used initially by miners, but he said the mine produced little valuable minerals. In the1960s, the elevator carried skiers instead.
“We’re doing this extension here, and we’re doing this garage door, we’re motivated by the ski history,” Buck said, pointing to the elevator. “The hoist room that we’re building, repairing, we’re motivated by the mining history.”
The restoration process began with the waste rock conveyor in 2019. Now, the group is working to replace the roof, which collapsed during the 2022-2023 winter. The construction crew has until Oct. 15 to complete the task.
The restoration is meant to emulate the mine’s original appearance, Buck said.
“We'll put the steel frame up and then we'll cover the steel frame with that decking that I talked about,” Buck said. “But then you'll have a nice, bright, shiny roof. So, what we do is we take the old, corrugated metal that's rusty, and we put that on top of the bright shiny decking and screw it down. So, the roof will look like it's 80 years old.”
The 1.2-million-dollar project is the fifteenth structure restored by the volunteer-run Friends of Ski Mountain Mining History.
Project funding comes from grants, donors and in-kind donations from corporations including Vail’s Epic Promise Foundation, the nonprofit said.
Logan says the group will restore the Silver King Mill next. It’s unclear when that work will begin. She estimates the total cost of all the nonprofit’s restoration projects will be $4.5 million.
